Short Breaks New Ground In `Wish'

NEW YORK — Playing the world's first male fairy godmother in "A Simple Wish," one of the summer's few family-oriented movies, was an unexpected joy for Martin Short.

"Well, I'm making something of a social statement, aren't I?" the comic pointed out, with a mischievous glint in his eye. "After all, there's always been something of gender bias, hasn't there? Why have all the fairy godmothers of the past been females? I mean, it's only fair."

"A Simple Wish" is a comedy that targets adults as well as children. It takes popular mythology and turns it on its head. Cinderella and all the rest would be shocked.

Short isn't worried that truckdrivers may point at him as he goes down the street and say "there goes the fairy godmother." "Let them snicker," he laughs. "It's a great part, and, after all, I'm an actor. If anyone wants to laugh too, that's fine."

It stars Mara Wilson ("Mrs. Doubtfire," "Miracle on 34th Street," "Matilda") as a little girl who needs help. Her father is an out-of-work actor who is auditioning for a part in a Broadway show (a musical version of "A Tale of Two Cities"). If he doesn't get the job, he's going to move to small-town America and give up showbiz.

Little Mara, the youngest-ever actress to win the national theater owners' Star of Tomorrow award, plays a child who needs help. She summons a fairy godmother, but she gets Murray, the only man in the profession. Murray, played by Short, is limited in wish-fulfilling skills. He mistakenly turns her father into a statue. Trying to produce a rabbit, he produces a rabbi instead. His opponent is Kathleen Turner, who plays a fairy godmother gone wrong.

"So he's a little mixed up," Short said. "I mean, Murray has problems, but the part is a great one."

"Of course," he added, sheepishly, "I suppose the list of actors who wanted the part was pretty short. I think there was Frank Stallone, Jerry Mathers and me."